The Packet Switching (PS) access network includes a Long Term Evolution (LTE for short) network, a Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS for short) network, a GSM EDGE radio access network (GERAN for short), a Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA for short) network and so on, which provides Internet Protocol (IP) access capability to users, thereby enabling the users to access the Internet network.
FIG. 1 is a diagram of architecture of an existing packet access network. The packet access network primarily includes a User Equipment (UE for short) 101, a Radio Access Network (RAN for short) 102, an Access Control. Function (ACF for short) 103, a Packet Access Gateway (PAG for short) 104, a User Profile Server (UPS for short) 105, and may also include a Policy Dispatch System (PDS) etc.
The UE 101 is used to receive and transmit wireless information, presenting services to users, and it can cooperate with the ACF to provide information required by the location services;
the RAN 102 is used to receive and transmit wireless information, and interact with the ACF and PAG, to enable the ACF to exchange control plane information with the UE and enable the PAG to exchange user plane data with the UE, and it can cooperate with the UE to provide location information to the ACF;
the ACF 103 is used to acquire user profile from the UPS, provide mobility management and bearer control to the user, and it can further exchange location information with the RAN and the UE to acquire the location information and provide location information to the LSC through the GMLC. Specifically, for example, the ACF is a Mobility Management Entity (MME for short) in the LTE network or a Serving GPRS Support Node (SGSN for short) in the UMTS network;
the PAG 104 is used to provide a bearer to implement exchange of user plane data. For a certain service or all services, the PAG includes one-stage or multi-stage packet data exchange gateway. The so-called “one-stage” refers to that for a certain service or all services, the RAN can implement packet data exchange with the Internet only through one PAG. The so-called “multi-stage” refers to that for a certain service or all services, the RAN can implement packet data exchange with the Internet through multiple (at least two) PAGs. Specifically, the PAG of the last stage which provides an interactive capability with the Internet is referred to as an Interworking Packet Access Gateway (iPAG for short), and former PAGs which provide the transfer capability are referred to as Transfer Packet Access Gateways (tPAG for short). Specifically, for example, the iPAG is a Public Data Network Gateway (PDN-GW for short) in the LTE network or a Gateway GPRS Support Node (GGSN for short) in the UMTS network, and for instance, the tPAG is a Service Gateway (SGW for short) in the LTE network or may also be an independent entity, such as a functional module of the ACF like the SGSN in the UMTS network;
the UPS 105 stores basic information of user and service subscription data, downloads user profile to the ACF and can acquire mobile information of user (the ACF where the user is located currently), thereby being able to cooperatively route a final call service request of the user to the ACF where the user is located currently. Specifically, the UPS may be a Home Subscriber Server (HSS for short), a Home Location Register (HLR for short), or an Authentication Authorization Accounting (AAA for short) in the mobile network.
The PDS 106 is used to receive service information from the UE and the application server, and on the basis of this, to generate a bearer policy to be distributed to the PAG so as to establish a suitable bearer, and the PAG may also report the packet access information to the PDS, and the PDS further distributes the packet access information to the application server. When the PDS is deployed, the Policy Dispatch Execution Agent (PDEA) of the PDS is set in the PAG. The PDEA may be an independent functional entity in the PAG and transfers signaling to the tPAG and/or iPAG in the PAG through an interface, or may be a logical function of the tPAG or iPAG.
Wherein, the interface U1 is an interface between the UE 101 and the RAN 102, which implements information interaction therebetween, including interaction of control plane information and user plane data; the U2 is an interface between the RAN 102 and the PAG 104, which carries user plane data of the UE; the U3 is a packet data interface from the PAG 104 to the Internet, which communicates with other Internet devices by using the IP protocol; the S1 is an interface between the ACF 103 and the UPS 105, which implements mobility management of the UE and download of the user profile; the S2 is an interface between the ACF 103 and the RAN 102, which carries control plane information of the UE and is used by the ACF 103 to acquire location information from the RAN 102 in a location service; and the S3 is an interface between the ACF 103 and the PAG 104, which controls the establishment and release of a user plane data channel etc.
Based on the current packet access network, an idea of identity and location separation can be further introduced, to construct a new type of Internet architecture, which is referred to as an identity network herein. The basic principle of the identity network is to allocate a fixed access identity to the UE, and the UE substitutes the IP address in the related art with the access identity for communication, and the iPAG located at the Internet edge allocates a routing identity to the user and uses the routing identity for routing, thereby implementing the mapping and conversion between the user access identity and routing identity.
FIG. 2 is a diagram of architecture of an identity network in the related art. As only the UE and the iPAG in the packet access network of FIG. 1 are involved in the data routing process of the identity network, network elements of the packet access network such as the RAN, the ACF and the UPS and so on are omitted in FIG. 2. The identity network illustrated in FIG. 2 includes a UE 201, an iPAG 202, a Common Router (CR for short) 203 and a Location Register (LR for short) 204, and description thereof are as follows.
The UE 201 accesses the Internet through the packet access network and substitutes the IP address with the user Access identity (AID for short) to be used as the source address of the IP data package to communicate with other user devices and application servers.
In addition to having the functions of the iPAG in FIG. 1, the iPAG 202 allocates a user AID to the user to take the place of the IP address when the UE establishes a packet data connection at the iPAG, and it further specifies a Routing Identity (RID for short) to establish a mapping relationship between the AID and the RID (AID, RID), and reports the mapping relationship to the LR; and in a process of communicating with a remote end, the iPAG can acquire the mapping relationship between the AID and RID of the remote UE from the LR according to the AID of remote end, or acquire the mapping relationship between the AID and the RID of the remote user from the received data package of the remote user, thereby implementing the processing and forwarding functions of the IP data packages according to the mapping relationship between the AID and RID of the local UE and remote UE.
The CR 103 implements calculation of the routing protocol, and forwards a data package to the iPAG where the destination UE is located according to the RID.
The LR 104 stores a mapping relationship between the AID and the RID reported by the iPAG, provides an inquiry function according to the mapping relationship, and returns a RID corresponding to the AID according to the AID in the inquiry request.
In the above architecture, the U1-2 is an interface between the UE 201 and the iPAG 202, i.e., a user plane interface from the UE to the PAG through the RAN in FIG. 1; the M1 is an interface between the iPAG 202 and the LR 204, which is used to report and inquire the mapping relationship between the AID and the RID; and the M2 is an interface between the iPAG 202 and the CR 203, which is used to forward data between the iPAGs.
When the UE-A transmits data to the UE-B, the UE-A constructs an IP data package {source address=AID-A, destination address=AID-B, payload} by using the access identity AID-A of itself as a source address and using the access identity AID-B of a correspondent node as a destination address, and transmits the IP data package to the iPAG-A; the iPAG-A uses the routing identity RID-A of the UE-A as the source address and uses the routing identity RID-B of the UE-B as the destination address according to the mapping relationship between the AID and the RID of the UE-A and UE-B, and routes original data package including the AID-A, AID-B and payload and so on as the payload of the newly constructed data package {source address=RID-A, destination address=RID-B, payload {AID-A, AID-B and original payload}} to the iPAG-B via the CR, wherein, the RID-B is acquired by the iPAG-A from the LR according to the identity AID-B of the UE-B; then the iPAG-B decapsulates the data package and restores the data package to the original data package transmitted by the UE-A {AID-A, AID-B, and payload} and transmits it to the UE-B.
It can be seen from the Internet access processes of FIGS. 1-2 that, the UE accesses an Internet service by using an IP address or an AID, and a remote end (for example, a map application server) can directly acquire the IP address or the AID from source address information of the data package, and such two identities are different from the commonly used application layer identities such as Mobile Subscriber International ISDN number (MSISDN, wherein the ISDN is an abbreviation of Integrated Service Digital Network), Session Initial Protocol Universal Resource Identifier (SIP URI), and the IP address or the AID belongs to the scope of a bearer network and they are therefore referred to as a user bearer identifier or a bearer identifier.
FIG. 3 is architecture of a location service of a packet access network and an identity network in the related art, which primarily comprises an ACF 301, an UPS 302, a Gateway Mobile Location Center (GMLC for short) 303, a Location Service Client (LSC for short) 304, and network elements such as UE, RAN, PSG, PDS and so on, which are not relevant herein, are omitted in the figure.
The GMLC 303 interacts with the ACF according to a request from the LSC, and acquire the location information of UE by interaction between the ACF and the RAN and UE, and returns the location information to the LSC, wherein, in the process of determining the ACF, it needs to acquire the ACF address where the user is located currently from the UPS. In the above location process, it only relates to the control plane network element ACF, the RAN and the UE in the packet access network, and does not relate to the user plane network element PAG. In the process of the GMLC acquiring location information through the ACF, the user is represented by using an identity of the user in the packet access network, which may be the MSISDN or IMSI or the both. The above identity is also referred to as an internal identity of the location service.
The LSC 304 requests the location information of the user from the GMLC by using the user identity according to the requirements of the application, wherein the user identity includes real identities of the user such as MSISDN, Session Initial Protocol Universal Resource Identifier (SIP URI) and so on, or the user identity may be an anonymous application layer identity. If it is an anonymous identity, it is required to add a corresponding entity between the LSC and the GMLC, to ensure the conversion between the anonymous identity and the real identity. The above identity is also referred to as an external identity of the location service. Specifically, the LSC is generally an application server in the network, for example, a map application server.
In FIG. 3, the L1 is an interface between the LSC 304 and the GMLC 303, which is used for LSC 304 requesting location information from the GMLC 303; the L2 is an interface between the GMLC 303 and the UPS 302, which is used by the GMLC 303 to acquire address information of the control plane network element ACF from the UPS 302; and the L3 is an interface between the GMLC 303 and the ACF 301, which is used by the GMLC 303 to acquire location information from the ACF 301.
A typical location service process is that the LSC 304 requests location information of a specified UE from the GMLC 303 through the L1 interface, and the GMLC 303 inquires the UPS 302 for the address of the control plane network element ACF where the user is located currently through the L2 interface, and inquires the control plane network element ACF 301 through the L3 interface according to the result returned by the UPS 302, and the ACF 301 may further inquire the UPS 302 for the location information of the user through the S1 interface and returns the location information to the GMLC 303, and then the GMLC 303 returns the result to the LSC 304.
In the related art, the LSC must firstly acquire the application layer identity of the user (real identity or anonymous identity), and then requests location service information from the GMLC by using the external identity of the above application layer, and the GMLC maps the external identity to the internal identity of the packet access network and then acquires the location of the user by using the interaction between the internal identity and the UPS and ACF. However, in the actual service, when a user accesses an Internet service through a packet access network, for example, the user accesses an application server of a map application provider on the Internet, it needs to acquire accurate user location information and provide service information such as adjacent map information and hotels and so on to the user according to the location information. As the UE uses the IP address or AID to interact with the application server, the application server may directly acquire a user bearer identifier of the user (IP address or AID) from a header of the data package at this time, but the accurate external identity of the application layer of the user may not be acquired, which causes that the application server is not able to use the location service provided by the packet mobile access network, thus limiting the application scope of the location service.